Large scale mine productivity gains

When most mining and haulage industry suppliers were suffering the impact of global recession, Transcale was generating worldwide interest in its sophisticated payload analysis technology.
In defiance of the downturn, the company recorded a turnover in 2008-09 which was five times greater than 2005-06.
“With 20 years experience putting our vehicle weighing equipment in the paddock, we had technology and skills we knew were vital,” said Transcale founder and joint managing director, Dan Valmadre.
“We were flexible enough to shift focus quickly from manufacturing to consulting, to help our clients in the changed economic environment.
“Transcale Global Services was established to address the load and haul improvements so many mines desperately need assistance with, and we took ownership of the mining and transport process in order to demonstrate the gains possible.”
For some years, Transcale had been building and refining a revolutionary system that produces a raft of complex payload data, including real time material density, product volume, load position and angle of repose.
Users say the Transcale Volumetric Scanner (TVS) has opened the door to a whole new world of haulage performance optimisation.
Once loaded trucks pass under the scanners, the system builds a 3D profile of the tray body and its contents, calculating volume. Used in conjunction with weight data from in-ground scales, its material density can also be automatically calculated.
When Transcale demonstrates the gains possible using their data to recommend changes in load positioning, onboard payload system management, tool matching and truck utilisation, the mining companies sit up and take notice.
For one large mining principal, Transcale conducted mine site payload audits, recommended adjustments and returned to study the outcomes.
Within the agreed 12-month project term, sustainable productivity gains of 10-12 per cent were confirmed.
On a mine site with an average annual load and haul budget of $20 million, that equates to savings of over $2 million year after year.
“Mining principals have very much embraced the technology and are enjoying the benefits of payload management,” said partner and joint managing director, Ross Grayson.
TVS telemetry is also informing truck body designers and helping OEMs and mine principals with truck and loader matching for best practice loading and improved return on investment.
“The more we use this technology, the more applications and process improvements we seem to find,” he said, “We are now adapting it to address these issues in the underground environment as well.”
“Understanding and managing vehicle payloads is integral to achieving highest returns in asset utilisation and adhering to machine safety recommendations.
“With accumulated data from each sampling activity, the impact of behavior changes can be identified and, more importantly, sustained,” Grayson said.
“This technology can modify behaviour and confirm gains within a single shift, then those improvements are rolled out across multiple shifts and then over months, then years.
“Productivity gains are considerable and measurable, and there are also huge advantages in terms of mine planning, production modeling and forecasting with confidence.”
Over two decades, Transcale has developed and continually refined hardware and software to monitor haul truck payloads, turning out off-highway scale systems in varying capacities up to monsters capable of weighing 800 tonnes per axle.
These high capacity mine scale systems are now deployed across more than 200 sites in 20 countries around the globe.
Transcale has set the international benchmark with scales that achieve accuracy to within one per cent or better, levels unprecedented in the sector.
Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of construction and mining equipment, insists on only Transcale, accepting only field load data gathered on Transcale equipment by a Transcale-certified operator.
During 2008, Rio Tinto’s Pilbara iron ore operations invested heavily in the hardware to roll out Transcale weighing and scanning systems across several mine sites to support their Continuous Improvement (CI) initiatives.
Surprisingly, Transcale is not a big enterprise – a team of just 20, including the two directors – but it is a determined, entrepreneurial outfit confident of its future.
Confident enough in fact to have just walked away, after a two-year courtship, from a potential global partnership deal.
Valmadre and Grayson say they are mindful of industry calls for Transcale to remain independent, so need to consider their expansion choices carefully.
“It’s not that we aren’t still keen to pursue strategic alliances or entertain investment suitors,” Valmadre said.
“There is no doubt this will need to happen in order to take on the massive growth we see in front of us.
“We now have a greater insight into the potential for partnering and, if we were to find the right synergy with someone, we would consider it.”
For now, Transcale is fully occupied attending to a bulging field studies and consulting workbook, the payoff for 20 years of market-focused business initiative and R&D.
And, with economic forecaster BIS Shrapnel tipping another resources boom from 2011, Transcale is also planning for another significant growth phase around the corner.